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Steers and Fears: Texas and Roswell, NM


I really wanted to see the folks at the small coffee shop before I left but I also wanted to get the fuck out of Oklahoma and into Texas. I made my way to the gas station across the street from my motel and bought myself a steaming hot coffee and a horrible and disgusting breakfast sandwich that I ate all of. Most of my food experiences on this trip so far (and ahead as I will talk about) have been dismal. When I don’t have another person saying “I’m going to take you to this spot, you’ll love it” I generally fail at eating meals on the road. And when you have hip friends that call places “spot” you know you’re in for quality. Just as my good friend Mike in St Louis hooked it up with the meals each time I’ve visited, I also experienced in Austin. But that’s not for a little while.

So driving through this part of Texas, the northeast corner of it. It’s rolling hills and very un-Texas like. In fact at the end of this trip, I don’t know if it’s a result of where I drove but most of Texas was very un-Texas like. Not a single tumbleweed. No hours-long stretches of flat two lane dusty roads. Actually there were some of those. One thing I’ve discovered on this trip, I imagine by accident because my eyesight is going, wearing sunglasses doesn’t give you the 100 % experience of seeing things as they are. Since I was driving all daylight hours on this trip, generally before 7:00 PM I always had the sun behind me. Having sunglasses on dulls everything. You think of Texas as the color of sand and brown sugar but it’s colorful and bright and new if you’ve never seen it. What could be wrong with that?

The never-ending drive to Austin from Claremore, Oklahoma seemed like it took about twenty hours. In reality it was about an eight-hour drive with a couple of brief stops for gas. A good chunk of the drive was on Highway 69 so that was exciting as well. I got to Austin around rush hour and met my friend I’d be staying with at her work and then followed her to some place where she promised me “the best fried chicken ever” and it was pretty damn good. I ate too much, got a little tour of some of Austin and then we went back to her place where I met her roommate and THEIR EIGHT CATS, ONE DOG AND A BIRD, MAYBE TWO BIRDS. I had my own room to myself with an occasional curious cat coming to visit me as I read myself to sleep finally in a home and not a rented room.

In the morning I would meet another friend I only knew from the Internet, Joey for breakfast. Joey took me to a great “spot” and we had an amazing breakfast of chilaquiles and talked about playing music and living in Texas. I mentioned not traveling with marijuana on this particular trip and he suggested I try something I had never heard of called “tinctures” which is basically grain alcohol and THC. He gave me an eyedropper full of the stuff and instructed me very carefully. “Only take maybe one dropper full, usually in a shot worth of water” after that “it takes about an hour to hit you” I hid the stuff away in my car and was on my way. Years ago I never would have made the effort to meet people I only knew a little. Our interactions online were pretty minimal aside from posting in the same private forum here and there. But it’s these kinds of meetings that make traveling better. Meeting friends, familiar people and strangers make it worth the hours spent alone staring at the sky in front of you.


My host Jodie was out of work early and decided to take me to The Alamo. I had never been there, and it was a short drive south of Austin. I’m pretty sure it was about one hundred and twelve degrees out. Apparently nobody told me, guy with three shirts on, about the weather. Like a lot of famous sites around the country the place is smaller than you think it’s going to be, also it’s smack down in the middle of a city. The city itself has some beautiful old buildings I took some photographs of but the heat proved to be too much so walking around wasn’t on the agenda. We white knuckled it back to Austin and I almost had a heart attack about four times. This happens when I am the passenger in any car.

  

The next morning, after an intense breakfast with Jodie that included eggs and avocado as well as a waiter that had a handlebar mustache, dressed like a cross between Doug Henning and a mime I hit the road for my next stop, Roswell, NM. I had never been, I wasn’t expecting much really. This drive was another eight-hour drive that gave me time to take in the first half of the trip. One thing I realized was I didn’t really do much “Austin” stuff. Well I didn’t eat ribs or see live music, I did have a mustache though so there’s that. I had a few great meals and was there more to see friends than see buildings. I’ll go there another day and deal with Austin proper, for now I had this long ass drive to Roswell. I feel like this one did actually take more than eight hours but I don’t feel like figuring that out.


  
The drive was similar to the drive in the north east part of Texas for a couple of hours, filled with winding hills with a good amount of green and colorful flowers on the side of the road. This eventually turned into just flat, straight long stretches through farms. Occasionally a rusty cloud of dust would snake its way upwards like miniature tornadoes. I tried to capture it with my camera phone but I didn’t do it much justice. Every half hour or so I would pass through a small town that took thirty seconds to drive through, and then back going in a straight line for miles on end. I tend to listen to podcasts or people talking more than music at this point as it makes the time go by faster.

So here I am about ninety minutes outside of Roswell and remember my friend in Texas gave me that grain alcohol/marijuana stuff. Roswell is supposed to be UFO central, so what better way to experience it than with the weed juice? I figure if I take some now I’ll arrive in Roswell just as this stuff kicks in and perhaps I’ll see an actual UFO or an alien walking down the street. Or maybe a closed UFO themed gift shop? My friend said to just take the one eyedropper full. I realize I’m a little bigger than him so decide I should take one and a half droppers full. I don’t have water, just the last of a bottle of diet soda. I dig the stuff out and fill it once, squirt it into my mouth and it’s like when you’re 13 and take your first shot of alcohol. I haven’t had any alcohol in my system in probably three years so the taste hit me. It’s not the best tasting thing, but I also ate that whole breakfast sandwich back in Claremore, Oklahoma a few days ago after eating at a Chinese food buffet IN OKLAHOMA. I ATE SEAFOOD THERE. I fill the thing halfway and drink the rest of it. It’s pretty disgusting. About forty five minutes later I decide to blast the band Kyuss in the car thinking “yeah this will be great, Kyuss in the desert, buzzed, let’s do it” An hour has passed and nothing has happened and I’m getting closer to Roswell. I fill the dropper up completely and take it down. Cough for a couple of seconds and again, wait. Nothing. I arrive in Roswell and am surprised at how much more lived in it looks than I imagined. I imagined this tiny place with two streets, a diner and that alien museum you hear about. No, it’s a fairly sized town with a lot of modern buildings and typical suburban sprawl, just not as desolate as I had imagined. I was staying at a Holiday Inn here where, like most towns I’ve stopped in, I found while sitting on my phone in a parking lot nearby looking for the best rate. It was a Friday night so rates are generally higher. I get out of the car and at this point have kind of forgotten that I was waiting to feel high. I was sitting down in my car for however many hours driving and ingesting the weed juice. Disgusting really, the whole scene. Walking into the hotel I am surrounded by elderly people sprawled across benches in front of the hotel, one of them is wearing some sort of award on a red ribbon. She says hello to me and I say hello back and they all kind of give me that old people smiling head nod thing. Like a “yes I sense you are a nice young man” look not knowing I was just in the car blasting music about Satan and doing drugs because I’m balls deep in Mid Life Crisis Fest 2015. I think little of the scene and continue in.

 The second I walk up to the counter of the hotel two women in their 50’s greet me. I immediately think to myself “GOOD LORD I AM HIGH AS A FUCKING KITE RIGHT NOW” It all hit my brain and body right at that second. I somehow managed to get my room checked into with this woman and am also offered lemonade and cookies. I feel like I’m in a Cheech and Chong movie and I should be like “Hey thanks man, how’d you know?” The woman that didn’t wait on me pipes in, “wait until tomorrow morning, that’s when I’ll make my cookies” I say to the woman who waited on me “You hear what she’s saying about your cookies?” We have some sort of brief and completely unsexy banter about cookies and I go to the table and stand so they can’t see me take four of the cookies. Two in my breast pocket and then two in my hand, with a cup of lemonade and three bags of luggage. I somehow make it back to my room without passing out or having an anxiety attack and immediately turn the air conditioning to sixty-nine degrees. Oh yeah, there was a sign on the counter of the hotel “Rowsell, New Mexico Holiday Inn Welcomes the 2015 New Mexico Senior Olympics” Yep, I’m staying in a hotel filled with elderly Olympic athletes.

 I rest for a few minutes, it’s late in the afternoon and I need to check out the town and see if I can see “some UFO shit” I decided I should probably take some more of that stuff since I am now pretty high as it is, this will make the UFO stuff even more trippy. Yeah okay sure. I ingest another whole eyedropper full, this time mixed with a little water. I almost immediately feel it. My mission objectives are simple: Starbucks, some UFO shit, dinner.

 I find some UFO shit but it’s closed. Almost everything is closed, well aside from this Mexican bakery. I go in there and buy a couple of doughnuts to go with the four sugar cookies I ate an hour ago. I also buy something called “Mexican Sweet Bread” which is basically just colored sugar cookies, a bit fluffier and delicious. There isn’t really many places to drive around and I certainly wasn’t going to drive to the “official spot where the UFO landed in Roswell” as there’s not going to be anything there. It’s not like going to say the Giant Meteor Crater near Flagstaff, AZ, which is so immense and crazy to look at and contemplate. There’s certainly a fun kitsch factor to the whole town and the aliens painted all over the place, but I really needed a coffee and to go back to my room with dinner at this point.

 I found a Starbucks, stood in line and all of a sudden heard a guy behind the counter loudly say “can I help you sir?” as if he had already asked me and I was off in space. I was now paranoid thinking he assumed I was on drugs and was judging me. Especially wearing a big cross around his neck. I ordered my drink and moved along; now paranoid everyone knew I was not right in the head. As I looked around I noticed at two different tables folks studying the bible in groups. Native Americans reading the bible, I thought of that Willa Carter book Death Comes For the Archbishop, one of my favorite books. At that moment I needed to get back to my room and fade off into the New Mexico night.

Morning came and I joined the elderly for breakfast, sitting by myself. Acknowledging the elderly woman with the gold medal on with a smile and a brain full of “what the fuck am I doing with my life?” No time to contemplate crap like that though. I was on my way to Las Vegas. On a Saturday night. There was a concert with Public Enemy and The Cult on the same bill. I thought about doing that, or gambling, or relaxing or just sitting in a Las Vegas hotel worrying again if this trip even mattered.

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Adventures at the Weed Doctor

  
When I was living in Massachusetts marijuana became a luxury item. Something that was rare, something you often had to work for. A guy at your work would “know a kid that could get it, he’s gonna meet us at this parking lot at this time and oh wait he texted and said it’s not gonna happen today” Fast forward to two weeks later and you were back, texting people in their 20’s that looked like they worked at Taco Bell and wait “yeah we gotta meet him at Taco Bell on Highland Ave between 8:00 PM and 9:30 PM” Wait, I have to hang out with you guys for ninety minutes? The idea of going into a store and buying marijuana is the stuff of me and my Ozzy (baseball) jerseyed friends in 1983’s dreams. But here it is 2015 in California.

 

When I first arrived here I visited some friends in San Francisco. My friend’s boyfriend had a “card” and after dinner one night we stood outside of his car and smoked a “prerolled” which is basically a joint you buy. These particular ones he had were packaged all fancy and professional looking. He offered to get me some. The next day we met up and after using an app called Weed Maps we drove to a “dispensary” I said “just get me like sixty dollars worth of joints whatever that is” He returned a few minutes later with a little paper white bag that literally said “Pharmacy” on it. Like the bags you get when you go and get an anti-biotic because something happened to your body. Inside the bag were five plastic tubes with joints in them. I smoked part of one of these on my drive back to Los Angeles and thought I might drive off a mountain so I stopped after a couple hits.

 

When I returned to Los Angeles I decided to see how easy it would be to get one of these “recommendations” (you don’t necessarily get a “card” but what’s called a “recommendation letter” I looked online for good reviews and prices and settled on one abut twenty minutes from me and this is exactly what happened:

 

On one of the busier stretches of Ventura Boulevard in the San Fernando Valley is a tight little strip mall with tiny parking spaces and as usual an odd mix of shops: weed doctor, donut shop, cellphone repair shop, a restaurant from a country you’ve never heard of and a (closed) Mexican restaurant. Just as I get out of the car a large man is vaping outside of the store next to the weed doctor place. “Weren’t you just here an hour ago?” he asks me through a puff of sweet smoke that smells of cookies. But like shitty Mrs Fields mall cookies. “No I wasn’t” “Are you sure?” he asks again, which is generally one of the worst things a person can ask you when you are so sure of something. Ignore him and go into the weed doctor place where I’m greeted by the smell of marijuana. I wasn’t aware they have marijuana in these places as this is just where you get the recommendation letter so you can go and buy it. At the reception desk are two women in their 20’s, although I think the one I dealt with was probably in her 30’s. One of them is talking about a tattoo she got the night before, the other one addresses me. I immediately think of Fran Drescher. Hair pulled back tight, in some sort of business suit but with high heels. The other girl was wearing a blazer with what appeared to be just a bra under it. This was the first time I felt like “eww this is what LA is like in nightmares” She gave me some paperwork to fill out just like a real doctor’s office. As I sat down the vape/weren’t you here earlier guy comes in and goes behind the counter. He is apparently the security guard. I guess he didn’t do a good job. He let me in “twice” The paperwork had questions asking about what was wrong with me, if I had ever tried marijuana, if I knew it was illegal for me to buy it and then resell it, etc. As I was sitting there two men walked in and were motioned into the back from Cookie Vaping dude. One of the men had a bag with him. They left a few minutes later empty handed. I’d be lying if I said they didn’t look Eastern European.

 

I handed in my paperwork. Within three minutes Fran Drescher came out and called me in. I sat at her desk as she interviewed me for a few minutes, rarely looking up as she filled out what would end up being the recommendation letter. So it was decided before she even read my paperwork that I needed one of these recommendations for back pain. I legitimately do have chronic issues with my back but I know I’ve smoked marijuana in the past and it did nothing for my back. It made live versions of No Quarter by Led Zeppelin pretty intense though. At one point during our chat the woman even joked “it’s not like we’re doing actual doctor work here” was I somehow deemed cool enough to be let in on the joke or did she just slip up? She finally stopped writing and handed me the sheet of paper and made eye contact with me. She instructed me “you can’t buy more than eight ounces and keep it in your trunk” (I think it was eight ounces) Either way, from the time I got out of the car to the time I got back into my car it was about twenty minutes. I could now buy marijuana and anything with marijuana in it legally because I was sick and it would help me get through my condition.

 

I found a dispensary the night before near my house and as with the “doctor’s office” I was immediately hit with the smell of marijuana the second I walked in. There was a small waiting room with a young Mexican man behind a window. I could see the tattooed arms of a young woman staring at a smart phone to his right. I gave him my California driver’s license and my recommendation letter. He handed me a clipboard where I barely read a bunch of statements and agreed or disagreed with them. A minute later I was buzzed into the area. It was a little overwhelming at first, two long counters with three girls working behind there which I learned were called “budtenders” (I know…) The clientele there were about three or four young healthy looking men. Tan, dressed well in their summer hip kids clothes. No sick looking people with like glaucoma pouring out of their eyes on to their faded Jefferson Airplane shirts. Just a bunch of young kids that are going to buy high quality weed and then whip away into the hills to get high at a pool somewhere. As with any new food establishment I go into I felt immediately pressure to order something so I just found the stupidest sounding “strain” I could find and went with that. So yeah I went with the “Chuck Norris OG”

 

I guess the stuff worked. On one occasion I stopped at a stop sign and sat there waiting for it to turn green. I was there for maybe twenty seconds before I realized I had zoned out. I guess the warning not to drive is correct. The other instance I knew it worked was when for one night I liked a Drake song I heard. Now I did hear it the following day and immediately had to somehow unhear it. I don’t have it in me as a forty-five year old man to like anything by Drake, ever. A few days later I realized my back didn’t have the pains it had before. I generally would feel them after waking up in the morning. Who gives a shit about my back though really? Let’s talk about weed. When I first left that dispensary it was like that scene in Half Baked when Dave Chappelle signs for the weed at the hospital. The excitement of this whole thing has since worn off and I am currently not really using any of it since I am job hunting.

 

The fact that they take this whole medical marijuana thing so serious and have all the strict rules is kind of a joke. When you’re selling something called “Am-Trac” because it will make you “feel like you got hit by a train yo” (overheard in dispensary) you’re not selling medicine for someone to get better you’re selling recreational drugs so people can escape for a little while. I don’t have cancer but I imagine if I did the last thing I’d want was to feel like I got hit by a train. Whether you abuse it is your own thing but the whole culture embarrasses me so I find it hard to be a hardcore “weed guy” at this point. The fact that I can get it now whenever I want and if a friend visiting wanted it I could be that guy is great and all but really, crutches to escape always end up wearing out.

 

 

 

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Jury Duty

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A postcard was sent to an old address I haven’t been at since August of 2009 informing me I had been selected for jury duty. I was more than happy to take a day off from work in the middle of the week. This was maybe my sixth time going to jury duty since I turned eighteen seventy-five years ago. Most people sigh when they tell you they have to go to jury duty as it usually means you end up sitting in some room for three hours with a bunch of squares who also don’t want to be there. What’s there not to like? I think of it as one of those civic duties you feel good about after doing like voting, giving blood, or wiping your ass on a piece of paper and mailing it to the Westboro Baptist Church.

 

I was scheduled to be there at 8:00 AM this morning. When I registered online after receiving the notice I put my new address in, since the court I was scheduled to appear at (Woburn) was in a different county. I’ve had four addresses since I lived in that county. Last night I received a “confirmation e-mail” that it was a go for this morning.

 

My normal social anxiety that takes place when I have to go to any kind of event that isn’t part of my daily routine would possibly be in full swing. Knowing that, I always try to dress as inconspicuous as possible. Sometimes it backfires. Today I wore all black, with a black Boston Bruins baseball hat. Halfway there I realized I was dressed like a cross between Kirk Hammett and a guy about to break into a house at night. I try to never wear anything that makes me stick out in any situation. I hate being in out with someone dressed like that as well. For instance if we were to ever meet up for dinner and you showed up wearing a yellow jacket I would probably leave. If you wear any kind of hat around me that has an elaborate brim, or has a feather in it, forget it, we’ll probably never be friends aside from on the Internet and maybe through some text messages.

 

Jury duty is generally a lot of sitting around and waiting for some adult to tell you it’s okay to go home. It’s kind of like being at a birthday party but without cake and singing. You always want to bring a book or a magazine with you. Some courts let you bring a cell phone, laptop, e-reader, etc. with you. I decided I wasn’t fucking around and brought two of those things in with me.

 

I arrived right on time, about five minutes early. Seeing security and metal detectors without a long line in front of them is always nice. I realized I was wearing steel toed boots about twelve seconds before walking in. Fuck. I emptied my pockets of everything and was reminded of the time I decided I would try smuggling marijuana on an airplane after September 11th, 2001. (I was flying a red-eye somewhere, for a brief three or four day trip. Upon arriving at Logan Airport I put a small amount of marijuana in a cigarette wrapper and put it in my mouth, like I was chewing tobacco. Looking in the rear view mirror my cheek was bulging. I decided to try behind my upper lip. Nope. Lower lip. Sorry. Looks like I wouldn’t be bringing any marijuana on my brief trip. My next best idea was to just smoke all of it, or as much as I could while sitting in the car. Maybe it would make me so high I would be high for the whole trip. Midway through that idea I realized, no, I’d be going through a security checkpoint, dealing with baggage people, and getting on an airplane. Social anxiety kicked into high gear as I made my way to the security checkpoint. Thankfully flying at night makes lines pretty much non-existent. I got to the metal detectors and emptied my pockets, placed my bag on the roller, and realized I had a cup of coffee in my hand. I put the cup of coffee in the bin with all of my emptied pockets stuff and sent it through the machine. Once I got to the other side, and one of the agents was guiding me along we noticed my coffee had spilled all over the inside of the bin, on my wallet, keys and everything else in there. The agent let me know I should have just walked through the metal detector with it. For whatever reason I thought this was the correct response to that: “Well, couldn’t someone sneak plastic explosives through like that?” The agent informed me I was not allowed to make comments like that. Now petrified of everything in the world, I made my way down to the gate.) Immediately the buzzer goes off and I’m told I am going to be checked with the wand. Just then one of the agents says “What happened to those Bruins last night?” I ignore him and then he says the same thing again. I realize I’m wearing a Boston Bruins hat yet I can’t for the life of me think of the single name of one professional hockey player even if I tried for five minutes. I don’t watch hockey. I like it, but I also like playing Boggle but I’ll probably never play Boggle again as long as I live. Wait, that’s not true. I kind of have an unwritten rule that when I am in a town other than Boston I’ll wear a Boston hat. If I’m here in Boston I’ll wear a Dodgers hat, or my St Louis Cardinals one I bought with my friend Mike from St Louis, in St Louis. Either way, it never fails, every time I wear this Bruins hat someone asks me about the game the night before. I should probably start wearing it the night they play so I look like I’m waiting to hear the outcome of the game. My boots don’t go off with the wand and I’m sent on my way.

 

Upstairs in the jury waiting room I’m sent to fill out a questionnaire to make sure I qualify. It gets to the part asking if I’ve ever been arrested and I have to think back to the few times I have been arrested more minor stuff. It was so long ago and so stupid (doing graffiti twice and driving with a suspended license once). I put the suspended license one down and made my way to the counter. The guy takes one look at the sheet “MAHBULHEAD? YOU SHOULDN’T BE HERE”, I look over at all the folks sitting there with their newspapers and looks of despair and now jealousy and I’m told to move down to this guy that will dismiss me. “You’re all set, you’re now set up for Essex County, they’ll probably call you at some point, or maybe not, have a good day” Thanks.

 

It’s 8:04 AM when I get back in my car. I should just go to work I’m only a half hour late now. I could go to a Chinese food buffet! The movies! Shopping! Nah, I’ll go home and write about my four minutes at jury duty today.

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Joplin, MO to Amarillo, TX – 2006

9/11/2006

Joplin, MO to Amarillo, TX

In Amarillo,Texas after a mostly bland day. I didn’t do any site seeing today aside from what was outside of my window at 75mph…and then I got pulled over in Oklahoma City.

So there I am cruising through the city limits of OKC. It’s pretty hot outside, and of course it’s pretty boring. The only thing you can really do is smoke cigarettes, listen to music and smoke marijuana. In my messenger bag on the passenger seat I had an Altoids case with a tiny bit of marijuana in it and a glass pipe; one of those one-hitters that’s pretty much just a less sketchy looking crack pipe. That is left in the front little pocket of the messenger bag, usually zipped up when not in use. At this particular time, presumably because I just used it and well, marijuana makes people stupid and lazy I left the little pocket open. Out of the, erm, blue, flashing lights come up on the ass of my rental car with the New Jersey license plate. Three or four days into this trip and I am unshaven and dirty, and at this very moment high as a kite. This is as close an accurate description of the conversation with the policeman as I can recall. I think it’s pretty close.

License and registration…where you coming from?

Boston

Why do you have a New Jersey license plate?

It’s a rental

Where you heading?

Los Angeles

What’s in Los Angeles?

My father

Are you driving back?

No, I’m flying back

Do you have a plane ticket?

No

How are you flying back?

I am going to print the ticket at the airport kiosk

Where you coming from again?

Boston

You staying with your dad there?

Yes

In Boston?

Yes

I thought you said your dad was in Los Angeles

YES, I am staying with him in Los Angeles

 

(the policeman is leaning in my passenger side window…around this point I look down and notice my messenger bag flap is open and the pipe is clearly in view)

I’ll be right back, I’m going to check out your information

Okay

 

(I need to get the flap on my bag closed somehow while he is at the car so I lean over to shut the glove compartment door and nudge it with my elbow closed…phew?)

Well it looks like your stuff checks out

 

(oh yeah, in my suitcase is a much bigger bag of marijuana. Stuffed into the pocket of a pair of pants)

Okay, thank you sir

Oh, one more thing, do you mind if I look through your trunk?

Sure

 

(I open the trunk and then he tells me to step away from the car. He opens my suitcase and starts lifting things up, including the pants I had the bag in…puts everything back and doesn’t bother with the three smaller bags that could have easily been filled with hands or feet of my “victims”)

Well you’re all set buddy…so Red Sox fan eh? That Manny Ramirez, he’s a character huh? All that hair. I tell you, if he was on my team I’d make him cut it

Yeah, heh.

Well, just remember we do things a little slower down here in Oklahoma

After this I pretty much didn’t stop until I got here in Amarillo. I found this hotel “The Ritz” that was $39.95 a night. The billboard was promising, there was a chandelier pictured on it. Free HBO. All the good shit. I walk in this pretty big place and should have taken my initial feelings of uncertainty after noticing the sign wasn’t lit up. The grand lobby with chandeliers, and a creepy Shining looking ballroom made it seem okay if not a little odd. I pay my money and make my way to the room. I walk in and immediately notice these huge bugs that look like black cockroaches with wings on the curtain and leave the room. (I later learn these are called “Palmetto Bugs”) I tell the guy at the counter I’ve decided to drive through the night.

I find a Holiday Inn that is huge with a pool, courtyard, comfy chairs inside, big TV and all that good stuff for a little more money. No bugs. Aside from these pleasures it sounds like someone is moving a gigantic safe or a big dead horse body across the floor in the room above me. I’m not sure if this is a smoking room or not. It’s interesting smoking in this situation as it’s like you’re on a ski trip in high school and you’re breaking some kind of rule.

Initially I smoked a cigarette in the bathroom with the shower on so the steam would kill the smell. I then smoked by the little porch I have here and then realized it looks out upon a courtyard and someone might see me. Then I realized I was 36 years old and from Massachusetts and could give a shit less what will happen if they figure out I smoked in here tomorrow when I am already 292 miles away from here…and I paid cash.

I must say I am extremely glad I got to see a sunset here in Texas on the drive here. It’s obviously not as nice as a California sunset but it’s better than a Massachusetts one. The road here from Oklahoma City was so straight I forgot how to use my steering wheel for a minute at one point. With nothing in front of you, behind you, or on either side of you it’s impossible to even explain how huge the sky looks. I can’t imagine there is a camera with the ability to capture it how it really is. I took a couple pictures while driving and while at a rest area


Every guy I saw at a rest area, gas station, etc today looked like the kind of guy that would just punch you in the face after telling you how abortion stops a beating heart. That or they looked like the wrestler Stone Cold Steve Austin. Which I guess is the same kind of deal.

Car is at 2,071 miles now. Windshield and front grill of the car are dirtier than a landlord’s soul.

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